The Oldest Depiction of the Life of St Catherine of Siena

St Catherine of Siena died on April 29, 1380, the feast of St Peter Martyr, who at the time was one of only three canonized Dominicans, alongside Ss Dominic and Thomas Aquinas. After St Vincent Ferrer, Catherine herself would become the fifth in 1461, canonized by a former bishop of her native city, Pope Pius II. Her feast was therefore originally assigned to May 2nd, and only later then brought back to today. In the post-Conciliar rite, with the suppression of Peter Martyr’s feast (easily one of its most foolish mistakes), she was moved yet again, to the day of her death.

The first known cycle of images of episodes from Catherine’s life, a series of ten panels, was painted by a Sienese artist called Giovanni di Paolo (1403 ca. – 1482); the altarpiece to which they originally belonged was later dismembered, and they now are in several different museums. There is some disagreement among art historians as to the original nature of the commission. Some hold that the panels were made as the predella of an altarpiece of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (shown below), commissioned in 1449 by a guild called the Pizzicaiuoli, for their chapel in the great pilgrim hospice that stands in front of the cathedral of Siena, Santa Maria della Scala.

However, St Catherine is shown with a halo in all the panels, 11 years before her beatification. It is perfectly possible that this was done in anticipation of her inevitable canonization, but many scholars hold that the predella was only added to the Pizzicaiuoli altar after that event, while others believe that they were never part of it at all, and originally surrounded an image of Catherine which has since been lost. The episodes are all taken from the biography of her written by her confessor, Bl. Raymond of Capua, also a Dominican. The original placement of the panels seems also to be a matter of dispute, and I do not shown them here in any particular order.

St Catherine receives the Dominican habit from Ss Augustine (the bishop in the middle), Dominic and Francis. The first appears between the two mendicant founders as a sign of the Church’s authority approving the way of life which they established, since his Rule was used by many of the new non-monastic religious communities that emerged in the 12th and 13th centuries, including the Dominicans.

St Catherine receiving Communion from Christ Himself, who has brought the Host to her from the Mass which Bl. Raymond is celebrating behind her.

The mystical marriage between Catherine and Christ, who is placing a ring on her finger as the Virgin Mary and many other Saints look on. (Something similar is attributed to her namesake of Alexandria.) 

Catherine offers her heart to Christ, in the midst of a mystical vision, indicated by the fact that she is floating on a cloud.

St Catherine gives her cloak to a beggar, who, of course, turns out to the Lord; He then appears to her and gives the cloak back to her.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Pius XI’s First Visit to the Lateran in 1933

In yesterday’s post about Saints Catherine of Siena and Francis of Assisi being made the patron Saints of Italy, I explained a bit about the state of cold war that existed between the Papacy and the kingdom of Italy in the period of the so-called Risorgimento, and how the Popes from 1870 until 1929 were confined to the Vatican. A friend then brought to my attention this video from the always-interesting YouTube channel Caeremoniale Romanum, a British Pathé newsreel, which shows Pius XI going to the Lateran basilica for the first time in his papacy, to celebrate the feast of the Ascension in 1933.

Our friend Fr Joseph Koczera, SJ, also shared with us this picture of an inscription (written in a very elevated and formal style of classical Latin) in the basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which commemorates the visit of Pope Pius XII during which he solemnly proclaimed Ss Catherine and Francis to be the patrons of Italy. (The church is called “sopra Minerva – over Minerva” because it was built on the site of a Roman temple.)

“On May 5 in the year 1940, Pius XII, shining forth in the majesty of the papacy, entered this church, was present for a solemn Mass, commended the Italian people to the heavenly patrons Francis and Catherine, and paid outstanding tributes to them both from the pulpit; going into the neighboring buildings (i.e. the Dominican house), together with the leaders of the city, he gladdened the Dominican and Franciscan families with his appearance and speech; in the piazza of the Minerva, he graced the celebrating crowd with an auspicious prayer. The Dominican friars set up (this inscription) for the memory of posterity.”

Ss Catherine of Siena and Francis of Assisi, Patron Saints of Italy

When an American pilgrim visits the ancient cities of Italy today, he may easily fail to realize that his own country is older than the modern state of Italy by nearly a century. From the fall of the Roman Empire until the mid-19th century, the Italian peninsula was divided into many countries, of varying size and importance, and the Pope himself ruled a fairly large one, with Rome as its capital. This country, variously called the Papal State or States of the Church, was the last to be conquered, in 1870, by the north Italian kingdom of Savoy, the consummation of the movement known as the “Risorgimento.” Perhaps even less well known today are the fiercely anticlerical character of the Savoyard government, and the long state of cold war that existed between it and the Church after the fall of the Papal State. For nearly 60 years, in fact, neither would officially recognize the other, and for much of that period, Catholics were forbidden under pain of excommunication from participating in the public life of Italy.

This unhappy situation was ended by the Lateran Pacts of 1929, whereby the Church formally recognized the Kingdom of Italy, which in turn recognized the sovereignty of the Pope over a tiny fraction of his former domains, the modern State of Vatican City. It was not however Pius XI, the Pope then reigning, who gave to modern Italy Saints Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena as her Patron Saints, but rather his successor, Pius XII. His decree to that effect was issued less than 3 months before the war that came after the War to End All Wars; prescient perhaps of the new catastrophe awaiting the peoples of Europe, including the Italians, Pope Pius writes of his choices:

Francis, poor and humble, truly the image of Jesus Christ, gave unlimited examples of the life of the Gospel to the very turbulent men of his age, and by establishing his three orders, opened to them a swift way towards the correction of morals both private and public, and to the true sense of the Catholic faith. In the same way did the most vigorous and devout virgin Catherine effectively work to encourage and establish harmony between the cities and towns of her land … (Licet commissa nobis, June 18, 1939.)

In this video, we see Pope Pius’ visit to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where the body of St Catherine rests under the high altar, shortly after the proclamation of the new Patron Saints. It is very much in the style of its times, and sadly rather blurry, but documents a truly moving display of popular devotion. In the second half, we hear the music of the Capella Sistina, directed by Lorenzo Perosi, (again, very much in the style of its times), followed by the voice of the Pope himself, as he calls Saint Catherine “Mother of her people, Angel of Peace,” and prays that she and Francis will protect Italy and lead her to God.

I have long thought that the choice of Francis and Catherine as joint Patrons of Italy was a particularly inspired one on the part of Pius XII, not only for their individual importance as Saints, but also as representatives of two religious orders whose impact on the fortunes of nearly every Italian city can hardly be overstated. A great part of the history of the Renaissance in particular is the history of the Franciscans and Dominicans, and of their patrons and parishioners, commissioning art works for their innumerable churches. Today, the Renaissance is too frequently spoken of as it were solely a Florentine affair, and the vital role of the Franciscans within it too easily forgotten. Much of the inspiration for the art of that period comes from St Francis and his love of creation, not for its own sake, but inasmuch as he saw every part of it as an expression of God’s love and mercy.

It was this that lead Franciscans scientists and others associated with the Order, (Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon are the most famous examples), to investigate how light, the beginning of creation, enables us to see and know the rest of it; and this in turn lead to the rediscovery of perspective in painting. Likewise, St Francis’ love for and interest in the created order also inspired the search for a more realistic depiction of it, leading Italian painting away from the hieratic styles of the low Middle Ages. It is not a coincidence that so much of the great Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries is found in churches built by Franciscans, from the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi to the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Nor is it mere chance that one of the greatest Italian painters of all time, Fra Angelico, was a Dominican friar.

Of the innumerable images of St Francis in the basilica in Assisi, surely one of the most beautiful is the so-called Sunset Madonna, by Pietro Lorenzetti. This is a fresco on a west-facing wall in the left transept of the lower church; it is called “the Sunset Madonna” because there is a window directly opposite it, through which the rays of the setting sun illuminate it for about an hour at the end of each day. The fresco was painted around 1320 above an altar (now removed) dedicated to St John the Evangelist, who is seen on the right side. One of the donors is depicted beneath him, in prayer before a Crucifix, and his wife was probably in the part now missing on the left side; the donor may very well have been named John, which was also St Francis’ baptismal name.

The traditional story about the arrangement of the remaining figures is that the Christ Child is asking his Mother, “Which of My Saints loves Me the most?”, to which the Madonna answers by pointing at St Francis, as if to say “He does.”

The Cathedral of Siena (Part 7): The Crypt

In 1999, work on the cathedral complex of Siena led to the accidental rediscovery beneath the church’s choir of a large space which had been sealed away and forgotten for about 650 years. This space is now called a “crypt”, although it was certainly not built as a crypt in the proper sense of the term, a burial space beneath a building; its original purpose and relationship to the rest of the complex remains a matter of speculation. Sometime in the mid-14th century, it was filled in with rubble and sealed off, one of various projects designed to shore up the huge cathedral, which sits at the edge of a rather steep hill, for fear that the weight of the recently extended choir would cause the hill to collapse. As a result, much of the fresco work within the space, which was still quite new when it was buried, is remarkably well-preserved.

As was almost always the case in the Middle Ages, none of the paintings are signed. Broadly speaking, they are attributed to a group of prominent artists known to have been active in Siena in the later 13th century and their students: first and foremost among them, Duccio di Buoninsegna (whose great masterwork, the altarpiece known as the Maestà, will be shown later in this series), then Guido di Siena, and the oddly-named Diotisalvi di Speme (“God-save-thee of Hope”), best known in the city as the painter of the Madonna which was replaced by the Maestà. Byzantine influence was still quite strong in Italy in the later 13th century, and especially in Siena, where artists were generally more concerned with decoration than perspective and three-dimensionality, but the tendency towards painting in a more realistic style which would be so characteristic of the Renaissance is already quite evident in many of these works. The more intact images show two cycles of the life of Our Lord, the Infancy and the Passion; a series of Old Testament stories above them were mostly destroyed when the building was, so to speak, decapitated before it was filled in and buried. (Photos by Nicola de’ Grandi.)

The Betrayal of Judas

Christ washes the feet of His disiples at the Last Supper.

The Crucifixion. In the earlier Middle Ages, Christ was shown on the Cross fully upright and awake, to indicate that even in the midst of His Passion, He is still God who sustains the universe. In the later years of the 13th century, especially under the influence of the Franciscans, the emphasis in art shifted towards Christ’s humanity, and hence, towards a more realistic portrayal of His sufferings. Here we see this in the slant of His body, which gives it a sense of real weight. This will be further accentuated in the next generation by Giotto, the first painter to show the body of Christ slumping forward as if it were about to fall off the Cross.

The Deposition from the Cross. Here we see very nicely another important trend of the period leading into the Renaissance, the use of facial expressions to tell a story, particularly evident in the women mourning over Christ.

The Lamentation at the Tomb.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Ss Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena, Patron Saints of Italy

When an American pilgrim visits the ancient cities of Italy today, he may easily fail to realize that his own country is older than the modern state of Italy by nearly a century. From the fall of the Roman Empire until the mid-19th century, the Italian peninsula was divided into many countries, of varying size and importance, and the Pope himself ruled a fairly large one, with Rome as its capital. This country, variously called the Papal State or States of the Church, was the last to be conquered, in 1870, by the north Italian kingdom of Savoy, the consummation of the movement known as the “Risorgimento.” Perhaps even less well known today are the fiercely anticlerical character of the Savoyard government, and the long state of cold war that existed between it and the Church after the fall of the Papal State. For nearly 60 years, in fact, neither would officially recognize the other, and for much of that period, Catholics were forbidden under pain of excommunication from participating in the public life of Italy.

This unhappy situation was ended by the Lateran Pacts of 1929, whereby the Church formally recognized the Kingdom of Italy, which in turn recognized the sovereignty of the Pope over a tiny fraction of his former domains, the modern State of Vatican City. It was not however Pius XI, the Pope then reigning, who gave to modern Italy Saints Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena as her Patron Saints, but rather his successor, Pius XII. His decree to that effect, issued less than 3 months before the war that came after the War to End All Wars; prescient perhaps of the new catastrophe awaiting the peoples of Europe, including the Italians, Pope Pius writes of his choices:

Francis, poor and humble, truly the image of Jesus Christ, gave unlimited examples of the life of the Gospel to the very turbulent men of his age, and by establishing his three orders, opened to them a swift way towards the correction of morals both private and public, and to the true sense of the Catholic faith. In the same way did the most vigorous and devout virgin Catherine effectively work to encourage and establish harmony between the cities and towns of her land … (Licet commissa nobis, June 18, 1939.)

In this video, we see Pope Pius’ visit to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where the body of St Catherine rests under the high altar, shortly after the proclamation of the new Patron Saints. It is very much in the style of its times, and sadly rather blurry, but documents a truly moving display of popular devotion. In the second half, we hear the music of the Capella Sistina, directed by Lorenzo Perosi, (again, very much in the style of its times), followed by the voice of the Pope himself, as he calls Saint Catherine “Mother of her people, Angel of Peace,” and prays that she and Francis will protect Italy and lead her to God.

I have long thought that the choice of Francis and Catherine as joint Patrons of Italy was a particularly inspired one on the part of Pius XII, not only for their individual importance as Saints, but also as representatives of two religious orders whose impact on the fortunes of nearly every Italian city can hardly be overstated. A great part of the history of the Renaissance in particular is the history of the Franciscans and Dominicans, and of their patrons and parishioners, commissioning art works for their innumerable churches. Today, the Renaissance is too frequently spoken of as it were solely a Florentine affair, and the vital role of the Franciscans within it too easily forgotten. Much of the inspiration for the art of that period comes from St Francis and his love of creation, not for its own sake, but inasmuch as he saw every part of it as an expression of God’s love and mercy.

It was this that lead Franciscans scientists and others associated with the Order, (Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon are the most famous examples), to investigate how light, the beginning of creation, enables us to see and know the rest of it; and this in turn lead to the rediscovery of perspective in painting. Likewise, St Francis’ love for and interest in the created order also inspired the search for a more realistic depiction of it, leading Italian painting away from the hieratic styles of the low Middle Ages. It is not a coincidence that so much of the great Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries is found in churches built by Franciscans, from the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi to the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Nor is it mere chance that one of the greatest Italian painters of all time, Fra Angelico, was a Dominican friar.

Of the innumerable images of St Francis in the basilica in Assisi, surely one of the most beautiful is the so-called Sunset Madonna, by Pietro Lorenzetti. This is a fresco on a west-facing wall in the left transept of the lower church; it is called “the Sunset Madonna” because there is a window directly opposite it, through which the rays of the setting sun illuminate it for about an hour at the end of each day. The fresco was painted around 1320 above an altar (now removed) dedicated to St John the Evangelist, who is seen on the right side. One of the donors is depicted beneath him, in prayer before a Crucifix, and his wife was probably in the part now missing on the left side; the donor may very well have been named John, which was also St Francis’ baptismal name.

The traditional story about the arrangement of the remaining figures is that the Christ Child is asking his Mother, “Which of My Saints loves Me the most?”, to which the Madonna answers by pointing at St Francis, as if to say “He does.”